Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 7, 2012, before the House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on the Justice Department. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Holder heads to Senate as contempt of Congress battle heats up in the House

When Attorney General Eric Holder will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, he will likely face a barrage of questions about the pending threat of contempt proceedings over what the House oversight committee has called a failure to comply with a subpoena related to Operation Fast and Furious.

Oversight chairman Rep. Darrell Issa announced Monday that he plans to hold a contempt of Congress vote on Holder next Wednesday. Presuming that vote proceeds along party lines, it will make it to the House floor; Speaker John Boehner said almost immediately that he supports contempt proceedings if Holder does not fully comply with the subpoena Issa issued in October 2011.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the judiciary committee’s ranking GOP member, said Monday that he also supports Issa’s push to hold Holder in contempt. Holder’s appearance Tuesday is all but certain to include direct pressure from Grassley and other senators who have been critical of the attorney general over Fast and Furious, including Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn.

Responding to a Fast and Furious-related question from the Fox News Channel’s Ed Henry during his Monday briefing, White House press secretary Jay Carney repeated the line of defense that Holder’s Department of Justice has offered publicly, literally reading his answer from a briefing binder.

Asked for “the White House’s view” on pending contempt hearings against Holder, Carney got chuckles from the press corps by mumbling “the White House view…” before opening up the binder and reading aloud.

“The White House view — as you know, Ed — fighting criminal activity along the Southwest border, including the illegal trafficking of guns to Mexico, remains a priority of this administration,” Carney said. “The attorney general has also made clear that he takes the allegations that have been raised very seriously, and that is why he asked the Inspector General to investigate the matter. It is also why you see the Department cooperating with congressional investigators, including producing 7,600 pages of documents, and including testimony at hours and hours of congressional hearings.”

While Carney is correct that the Office of Inspector General inside the DOJ’s is investigating, and that Holder has provided about 7,600 pages of documents to Congress, those pages are a small fraction of the number he provided to his department’s internal investigator. Issa wrote in early May that Holder has failed to fully comply with all 22 parts of his committee’s subpoena. (RELATED: Full coverage of Operation Fast and Furious)

Left-wing political groups defended their self-described “progressive” attorney general Monday. In a statement, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights CEO Wade Henderson criticized Boehner and Issa for moving forward with contempt proceedings, saying they are “committing a serious disservice to the House and to the American people.”

Without any mention of the word “subpoena,” Henderson claimed Holder has “complied” with Issa’s investigation. Henderson’s spokesman Scott Simpson hasn’t returned The Daily Caller’s request for comment on this omission.

Deputy Attorney General James Cole, Holder’s second in command, wrote to Issa Monday asking him for a meeting. “I am confident that the two of us, working in good faith, can bring this matter to a close,” Cole wrote.

Cole has made similar overtures to Boehner in recent weeks, ultimately leading to New York Times reporter Charlie Savage writing, incorrectly, that Boehner was trying to cut a deal with Holder. The story has since been edited and Savage has conceded that he violated the Times’ ethics code.

It was the Department of Justice, not Republican leaders, who were floating the suggestion of a compromise. Savage later admitted he failed to ask Boehner’s office to comment, making it likely that his story developed as the result of a pitch from Holder’s team.